Gorgeous & spectacular Palmavela!

J70 class at PalmaVela 2024 © Nico Martinez / PalmaVela

The 20th edition of PalmaVela took place this past week at the Real Club Náutico de Palma at Palma Mallorca, Spain.

One-design fleets of J/70s and J/80s enjoyed the amazing sailing conditions inside Palma Bay for their three-day regattas. And, the offshore ORC Divisions also featured beautiful sailing offshore.

Day 1

As they say, after the storm comes calm. After two days with very strong winds, the "Eolo wind" became milder with about 11 knots from the southwest.

The J/70s are warming up in this PalmaVela for the next J/70 World Championship, which will be organized by the Real Club Náutico de Palma and will be held at the end of September. RCNP patron María Bover already won last year at PalmaVela in the J/80s and is now the leader with BALERIA in the J/70s.

The J/80s have also completed three tests, with the Valencia RCN boat ISER appearing at the top of the leaderboard. Manuel de Tomás' ISER team won all three races. NOR DID SAL, from CN Arenal, a boat built for the President of the Balearic Sailing Federation- Cati Darder- has Neus Fernández as its skipper and was sitting in second place. The Mallorcans remain one point behind the provisional leaders.

Day 2

In the J/70 fleet, María Bover on BALERIA commented, "The bay was quite complicated today; you have to be very careful because the pressure is coming in from time to time; you might be sailing on the right side and suddenly you get pressure on the left side. All this makes it more challenging."

J/70 Class

In the end, Bover's BALERIA won by winning 6 of 8 races for a runaway victory. The silver went to Kai Uwe Hoolweg's OMG with 13 pts, while taking the bronze medal was Krystyn Gills's KANGURU team from Australia.

J/80 Class

Like the first day, the finale ended up being a hard-fought series between the top two teams, In the end, Manuel de Tomas's ISER won with 13 pts. Cati Darder and Neus Fernadez's NOR DID SAL took the silver medal with 15 pts. The podium was rounded out by Nuria Sanchez's DORSIA SAILING TEAM.

ORC 4 Division

Hoping to pull off a three-peat in this division was Scott Beattie's J/97E team on JUST THE JOB. Going into the fifth and final race, they were in contention for the lead just one point out from the top of the podium. However, a final race 4th torpedoed their chances, and had to settle for a bronze medal on the podium! For more PalmaVela 2024 sailing information